Montesquieu, Baron de

Montesquieu, Baron de, illustrious French publicist, born in the
Château La Brède, near Bordeaux; his greatest work, and an able, “Esprit
des Lois,” though rated in “Sartor” as at best the work of “a clever
infant spelling letters from a hieroglyphic prophetic book, the lexicon
of which lies in eternity, in heaven”; was author of an able work “On the
Causes of the Grandeur of the Romans and their Declension” (1689-1755).